Microservices with Terraform, Docker and the Cloud. Chicago Coders Conference 2017-06-27

Managing Microservices
using Terraform, Docker, and the Cloud
Given by Derek C. Ashmore
June 27, 2017
©2017 Derek C. Ashmore, All Rights Reserved 1

Who am I?
• Professional Geek
since 1987
• Java/J2EE/Java EE
since 1999
• AWS since 2010
• Specialties
• Refactoring
• Performance
Tuning
• Yes – I still code!

Lab Preparation
• This lab has set-up instructions on my github
– https://github.com/Derek-Ashmore/terraform-hands-on-lab
• Set up for the lab during the discussion!
– It is socially acceptable
– I will not wait for you to do the setup!
– Feel free to treat the lab as a demo

Discussion Resources
• This slide deck
– http://www.slideshare.net/derekashmore
• The hands-on-lab code and setup instructions
• The Moneta microservice (written in Java)
– https://github.com/Derek-Ashmore/moneta
• Slide deck has hyper-links!
– Don’t bother writing down URLs

Agenda
Microservices,
Docker, and
the Cloud
Cloud with
Terraform
Terraform’s
Competitors
Summary /
Q&A

What are Microservices?
• No concrete definition
• Common microservice traits
– Single functional purpose
• Most/all changes only impact one service
• Not dependent on execution context
– “loosely coupled”
– Independent process/jvm
– Stateless
– Standard Interface (typically Web Service/REST)
– Analogy: Stereo system, Linux utilities

Microservices Application Architecture
• Separate Databases
• Eventual Consistency
• More network activity

Typical Microservice Library

Microservice Deployments

Docker
• Is a “mini VM”
• runs a linux kernal
• Compare to shipping
container
• Standard “connections” to
outside world
• Supported formally by
Oracle, Tomcat, Jboss, and
many more
10©2017 Derek C. Ashmore, All Rights Reserved
Package Once, Run Anywhere!

Why Docker?
• Docker is Win-Win
– Easier for OPS and system administrators
• All software looks the same
• Standard interface for disk and network resources
– Containers can be “linked”
• Inherently automated
– Easier for developers
• Fewer environment difference issues
• Less to communicate to OPS / system administrators
• Easy to leverage work of others (docker-hub)
– If you haven’t tried Docker yet – you should!

Docker Build File
• Docker file for Microservice Moneta
– Base Image
• FROM java:8-jre
– Expose Folder
• VOLUME /config
– Download Moneta Jar Release
• RUN curl -SL "$MONETA_URL" -o moneta-dropwizard.jar
– Expose Ports
• EXPOSE 8080 8081
– Run It
• ENTRYPOINT exec java -classpath $CLASSPATH -server $JAVA_OPTS
• -jar moneta-dropwizard.jar server /config/moneta-dropwizard.yaml

Running a Docker Image
• The Docker Run Command
– Exposes Ports
– Attaches Disk
– Passes/sets Environment Variables
– Allocates Memory
• Example from the Lab Portion
– export JAVA_OPTS="-Xmx768m”
– docker pull derekashmore/moneta-dropwizard:0.9.3-alpha
– docker run -d -p 80:8080 -m 800m -e JAVA_OPTS
– -v $PWD/moneta-config:/config derekashmore/moneta-dropwizard:0.9.3-alpha

Typical Microservice Install at AWS
• Horizontal scaling is supported
• Multiple copies of microservice / web application
running at the same time
• Elastic Load Balancer distributes load across
copies of your service
• Sticky sessions available
• ELB can use health checks
• Autoscaling Groups scale number of copies up
and down based on rules you give it
• CPU Utilization or other metrics
• Autoscaling Groups distribute across availability
zones for availability

Network Security

Network Security (con’t)
• Public vs. Private subnets
– Specified by Routes and Network ACLs
– Public subnets can be used from the internet
• Web Servers typically placed here
– Private subnets only used within your Virtual Network
• Access from the internet just not possible
– Even if a public IP is assigned
• Microservices
• Databases
• Messaging traffic
• It’s common to add SSO (for web applications) and OAUTH (for
microservices) above that

Security Groups
• Security Groups provide Inbound/Outbound rules for individual instances
– Think of as “an assignable firewall”
– Multiple rules per VM allowed.
– Easy additional layer of security
– No changes to applications or services needed.
• Examples
– Web Servers  Allow port 80 and 443 from anywhere
– Web Servers  Allow SSH/SFTP only from within the VPC
• Security Groups and be associated
– Financial Microservice Allow port 443 only from VMs belonging to security group
FINANCIAL_SERVICE_CLIENT_SG
– Oracle Database  Allow port 1521 only from VMs belonging to security group
ORACLE_CLIENT_SG

Managing Cloud Assets
• Objectives
– Managing Complexity
• Environment Consistency
• Environment Lifecycle Support
• Ease of change
• Reuse
– Manage risk of change
– Mitigate Cloud Lock-in
• Infrastructure as Code
– Reusable Infrastructure Components
• Leverage work/expertise of others
• Big problem  Smaller manageable problems
– Change Tracking – Source Control

Agenda
Microservices,
Docker, and
the Cloud
Cloud with
Terraform
Terraform’s
Competitors
Summary /
Q&A

Terraform
• Cloud Management
– Open Source
• Very active community
– Extensible to any cloud vendor
• AWS, Azure, GCP, AliCloud, Digital Ocean, OpenStack
– Supported for Cloud Support products
• Chef, Consul, Kubernetes, Datadog
• 62 Providers as of April, 2017 and growing

Terraform HCL
• Declarative Language
– Describe what the end product contains
• Terraform figures out how to get there
– Terraform Resources
• Describes deployed artifacts
– Network  Virtual Networks, Subnets, Network ACLs, Gateways, ELB/ALB
– Hosts  Virtual Machines, Databases
– Security  Security groups/policies/roles/groups/users
– Much more

Terraform Basics
• Declarative Programming
– All *.tf files loaded  Terraform decides execution order
– No GUI  All command line and text editor
• Top Commands
– Terraform plan  Describes planned changes
– Terraform apply  Makes planned changes
– Terraform taint  Forces re-creation of a resource
– Terraform destroy  deletes all resources

Terraform Resources
• AWS Subnet Resource
– Count = 3  Three subnets created
– Availability Zones come from a data source (lookup)
– CIDR blocks are input variables
• Sample source

Terraform Data Sources
• Example Data Sources (lookups)
• Sample source

Terraform Providers
• Example Provider
• Sample AWS source
• Azure Provider

Terraform Input Variables
• Example Provider
• Sample source

Reusing Terraform Templates
• Example Template Reuse
• Sample source

Typical Project Structure

Terraform State
• Terraform stores state
– Local file terraform.tfstate
• Teams need to manage state centrally
– Terraform Backends
• Locks so that only one person at a time can update
• Remote storage
– S3, Azure containers, Google cloud storage, etc.

Agenda
Microservices,
Docker, and
the Cloud
Cloud with
Terraform
Terraform’s
Competitors
Summary /
Q&A

Terraform vs. Ansible/Chef
• Terraform designed for infrastructure
– Not designed for configuration management
– Terraform deploys images
• Not good at maintaining what’s on those images
• If deployments update existing VMs
– You need Ansible, Chef, or Puppet
• If deployments are “new” VMs
– Terraform can handle deployments too

Paradigm Shift
• Deployment as new infrastructure
– New version  new VMs
• Software versions baked into images
– Advantages
• Facilitates Canary Deployments
– Route53 Routing Policies
• Go-live operation has less risk
– Deploy/Backout is just a load balancer switch
– Disadvantages
• More moving parts
• Impossible to do manually

Terraform vs CloudFormation
Terraform
• Scripting skills translate to Azure,
Google Cloud, etc.
• Less verbose (>50%)
• Data Lookups
• Custom Plug-ins possible
• Active Community Support
CloudFormation
• Quicker to follow AWS enhancements
• GUI support
• Automatic centralized state
• Vendor Support

Further Reading
• This slide deck
– http://www.slideshare.net/derekashmore
• The Gruntwork Blog
– https://blog.gruntwork.io/

Questions?
• Derek Ashmore:
– Blog: www.derekashmore.com
– LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/derekashmore
• Connect Invites from attendees welcome
– Twitter: https://twitter.com/Derek_Ashmore
– GitHub: https://github.com/Derek-Ashmore
– Book: http://dvtpress.com/

HANDS-ON LAB

Lab Resources and Objectives
• This lab has set-up instructions on my github
• You will experience
– Creating a network and deploying VMs at AWS using Terraform
– You will learn how to use Terraform Modules to leverage your code
across applications
– You will see the output of your work live on the internet.
• Java Microservice to be deployed
– https://github.com/Derek-Ashmore/moneta

Sample Java/EE Microservice
• Moneta – Greek goddess of ‘memory’
– Open source: https://github.com/Derek-Ashmore/moneta
• Objective:
– Provide a RESTful Web Service interface to a relational database
• Feature set:
– Provides generic ‘core’ services
– Returns Json-formatted data
– Supports startRow and maxRows query options
– Supports a security call-out
– Built-in Dropwizard, Spring Boot, and War-file deployments
• Sample contract spec – currently read-only (writes in progress)
– /moneta/topics – lists ‘topics’ of information
• E.g. – Topic Customer configured
– /moneta/topic/customers?startRow=5&maxRows=25
– /moneta/topic/customer/111-222-333
• Docker deployment
– https://hub.docker.com/r/derekashmore/moneta-dropwizard/

The Lab Network at AWS

Questions?
• Derek Ashmore:
– Blog: www.derekashmore.com
– LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/derekashmore
• Connect Invites from attendees welcome
– Twitter: https://twitter.com/Derek_Ashmore
– GitHub: https://github.com/Derek-Ashmore
– Book: http://dvtpress.com/
terraform destroy

Microservices with Terraform, Docker and the Cloud. Chicago Coders Conference 2017-06-27

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